


Every Body Has a Story

by Severina



Category: Die Hard (Movies)
Genre: Community: 1_million_words, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-01
Updated: 2019-04-01
Packaged: 2019-12-30 05:44:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,167
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18309365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Severina/pseuds/Severina
Summary: It's not only chicks that dig scars.





	Every Body Has a Story

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a weekend challenge prompt: "Every body has a story and a history."
> 
> * * *

The first scars Matt notices are the ones on John's feet.

He doesn't have to ask about them. It's three and a half weeks after the fire sale, and two weeks since he's been living in John's house. John's old desktop (a Dell. A freakin' _Dell_. Matt still shudders) was covered in dust, and it took him about four hours to get rid of all the Trojans and viruses and e-bombs, and another six (and a loan from John's MasterCard) to upgrade it to even passably usable. 

Turns out there's a lot of shit online about Detective John McClane.

So after reading all about Nakatomi Tower, he'd think that John would be fanatical about footwear. But no. The guy pads barefoot to the kitchen in the middle of the night; lounges on the sofa with his bare feet propped on the overstuffed arm; reads the paper in his pajama bottoms with one bare foot crossed at his knee. Matt gets a daily look at the multitude of tiny criss-crossed white lines and the three long, thick ropes of scar tissue that mar the bottoms of John's feet.

One thing does bother him, and one Sunday morning when John is tapping his big toenail on the kitchen tile in time to his transistor radio's tinny version of 'Freebird' while muttering over the sports section he just blurts it out.

"So," Matt says. "Nakatomi."

John grunts, which could mean _that was a complete shitshow, lemme tell ya_ or could mean _never speak to me again of this_ \-- Matt is still refining his McClane-speak – and doesn't look up from the paper.

"Why… and this is just me being curious, and I find it hard to believe that nobody ever asked, but believe me I read a lot of… the back issues of _The Post_ have some crazy shit on… never mind, my question is… why would you take your shoes _and socks_ off at an office Christmas party?"

John glances over the top of the sports page. "Toe fists," he says.

"Toe… fists?"

John grunts again and goes back to reading about tall men bouncing large balls.

Matt decides to just live with the mystery.

* * *

"What about that scar on your bicep?"

They're eating breakfast some time later. John is shirtless. Matt is discovering that John is often shirtless, which isn't helping at all with the lust-filled thoughts that plague him night and day. He's been staring at John's chest, in fact, with a spoonful of Shreddies halfway to his mouth when John _notices_ and opens his own mouth, probably to say something like _jeeeeezus kid, take a picture it'll last longer_ or _you got somethin' ya wanna tell me_ or the dreaded _you keep creepin' on me like this I'm gonna have to kick your ass to the curb, kid_. So Matt does the only thing he can to avert disaster and blurts out the first thing that comes to his mind. 

It works. John frowns and glances down at his arm. "What about it?"

"How did you get it?"

John flexes his arm then shrugs. "Shrapnel."

"Fuck, McClane, were you in the armed forces?" Matt asks. And then, a little breathless, "Black Ops?" because _holy shit_ , nothing in his research on McClane indicated any kind of military service. And that's the kind of thing that would be buried deep, he'd need access to his (blown up) gear and some heavy duty splice work to access that data. He's actually itching to find it, about ready to start planning a trip to Warlock's and whatever ass-kissing he has to do to use his superior system when John abruptly takes the wind out of his sails.

John snorts out a laugh. "Not that kind of shrapnel, kid," he says. "Got this from blown out bricks."

Matt blinks. It's kind of difficult to get the image of John in full military dress out of his mind.

"Happened back when I was still in uniform. Coupla kids harassin' people outside a Kwik-Mart, makin' grabs at the women, mouthin' off about what they were gonna do them when they got 'em alone. Me and my partner Eddie got the call; pull into the lot and one of the little future rapists lobs a fifth of Beam at the car, cracks the windshield. They take off in opposite directions; Eddie loops to the back of the store to track the pitcher while I head down Charlotte after the other asshole. Would've been an easy takedown if he didn't have the gun."

"Jesus! He shot you?"

"Shot _at_ me, kid. Bullet dug into the side of a brick building, ricocheted back and sent a dozen little shivs into my arm. Middle of summer, no jacket. Blood everywhere."

"Wow."

"Punk thought he got me. Scared the shit out of him when I collared him two blocks later."

* * *

John likes to be shirtless.

John also does not appear to own a robe.

John wanders out of the bathroom after a shower with water still dripping from his pecs and running in fine lines down the flat of his stomach to pool at the edge of the teeny little white towel he has shrugged around his hips.

Matt gasps and his mouth goes dry and he licks his lips and swallows and that's when John leans a hip against the doorjamb and raises a brow.

And of course Matt can't just blurt out what's on his mind because he's never said half of those things out loud and at least two of them he's not even sure how to do (but he's willing and eager to learn) so instead he points at John's hip and says, "I'VE NEVER SEEN THAT SCAR" and he's pretty sure his Great Aunt Lulah in Toledo hears him.

John doesn't even look down at the thin white line that slices through his hip. "Ninjas," he answers.

Matt huffs out a breath. "Ninjas. Riiiight."

That brow rises even further.

"No way. Ninjas?"

"Ain't much different than those parkour freaks that Gabriel threw at us."

Granted, those guys were crazy good with the weaving and the jumping. But… "Ninjas?"

John settles against the wall. "Japanese mafia. Into everything: drugs, weapons, women. Long story short, when my team and I were gettin' too close they set these guys on us. Like something out of a goddamn movie, kid – the black getups, the headscarves, the fuckin'… what do they call those throwing stars?"

"Nunchuks?"

"Fuckin' nunchuks," John agrees. "These guys are like Jackie Chan, flyin' through the air, doing these roundhouse kicks that are sending my guys back a dozen feet. One of 'em comes at me, got one of those double edged blades, swingin' it around like a baton twirler at a college football game, and next thing I know, ZAP! Sliced clean through, bleedin' like a stuck pig, cornered with two more of 'em comin' right at me."

"Holy shit," Matt gasps. "Really?"

John laughs. "No, not really. Jesus, kid. Fell on a stick when I was nine."

"Oh that's… yeah, that's super funny. Good one, McClane. Had me going there."

John laughs again, turns to head down the hall to his room. And when he whips his towel off just before he goes inside, Matt forgets the whole story anyway.

* * *

Matt stands over John at the breakfast nook, cocks his head as he looks down at John's bald dome. "This is new."

"Cut myself shaving. Don't worry, kid, it ain't gonna scar."

"Huh. You know, if you needed help with that… 'cause of your arm I mean—"

"I'll take that under advisement."

* * *

They've been watching the Rangers. Or maybe the Islanders. Matt can't be bothered to read their shirts. All he knows is that he had a long day doing a virus protection workup for his first legitimate corporate client post-firesale, the rink is just a blur on John's old rod and tube set, and the dip in the middle of the sofa cushions means that he's slowly but surely sliding into John's personal space. Not that he's trying to do much to stop the inevitable.

John is warm, even in the dead of winter. And he's made some concession to the fact that there's a foot of snow outside by throwing on a wifebeater, which means he might as well be shirtless. So when Matt ends up with his head resting on John's shoulder he doesn’t even bother apologizing or trying to move. To his sleepy logic, if John doesn't want Matt all over him like his own personal snuggy then he should wear some freaking clothes.

"I _am_ wearing clothes," John says.

Matt's heart... stops. 

Yup, nothing going on in there. Silence in the old breadbox.

Aaaaaaaaaand… okay, there it goes. From zero to sixty in one gaping fish out of water gasp.

About a billion words crawl onto his tongue but he grits his teeth and swallows them back down. Does nothing more than swivel his head on John's shoulder. And it's only then that Matt realizes that at some point when he personal-snuggied his way into John's dance space, John had lifted his arm and wrapped it around his shoulder. And he could just be happy with that, but Matt's always been an all or nothing kind of guy… so he shifts enough to look up into John's face. 

And John isn't pretending to watch the game or staring into space. John isn't mocking him or smirking at him or laughing at him.

John is looking at him. Fondly.

John's fingers are playing with the hair at the nape of his neck. Lifting it then letting it fall. Sweeping through it. Rubbing it between calloused fingertips.

Matt shifts again, resting his palm on John's chest for balance. And John's heart is rat-a-tatting just as fast as his own.

And John's most recent scar is there, a mass of ugly red tissue. The place where he shoved a gun into an open wound and pulled the trigger. To save his daughter's life. To save the life of some two-bit sarcastic motor-mouthed hacker he barely knew. 

If Matt hadn’t already known that he was in love with the guy – and he had, he'd known since he ran out to the Kaludis' driveway and forced his way into their old car – he would have known it right then. When John was willing to sacrifice everything.

Matt leans down and presses his mouth to the scar. 

It's beautiful.

* * *

"I've got a lot more scars, ya know," John says later.

The hockey game is over and now some old geezer in a loud sports jacket seems to be yelling while the recap plays, but John's muted the sound. Matt's kissed more than John's healing scar. His lips are swollen from all the kissing.

"I look forward to investigating," Matt says. He tugs experimentally at the waistband of John's jeans. "In fact, I'd be willing to start now—"

"First," John says, pulling away just enough that Matt knows that his fingers will not be doing _that_ walking tonight, "I want to know how YOU got this scar." 

Matt blinks when John's finger traces the small scar between his eyebrows.

"Oh, _that_ ," he says. "So I grew up in a bad part of town, right? Got caught up in a huge gang fight. One of the… Crips… came at me with a knife. I picked up this trash can lid to defend myself, using it as a shield, and… you're not buying this for a second, are you?"

"Not even half a second."

"Dog attack?"

"No."

"Bullied at school?"

"With your mouth? You'd eviscerate anyone who came at you."

"I can do lots of awesome things with my mouth."

"Matthew."

Matt's shoulders slump. " _Fine._. I fell off my tricycle. I was three. Nearly gave my babysitter a heart attack."

"That sounds more likely," John says. His lips are warm against Matt's skin, and Matt shivers. He'd never thought of the space between his brows as an erogenous zone before. Who knew?

"Hey, John," he says sometime later. He's somehow ended up straddling John's lap, and John's hands are big and warm on his hips, and he's been tracing the scar that runs along John's collarbone with lips and teeth. "Hot as they are – I mean, it's abundantly clear that it's not just chicks who dig scars – don't get any more of these, okay? My heart probably couldn't take it."

"Least I got somebody to kiss it better when I get home."

Matt lifts his own brow. "My mission, should I choose to accept it?"

"Sure as hell hope you weren't plannin' on being somewhere else," John says.

It had been at the back of his mind. When the initial four weeks he'd planned to stay at John's became six weeks, then three months, then half a year. When the surreptitious drooling started to affect his ability to code. He'd thought he should probably start looking for his own place. But now?

"Nope," he says. "I'll be home."


End file.
